'Clean and safe' agriculture in Northern Thailand: achievements, challenges and priorities

Concern about health and environmental hazards has lead 'clean and safe' agricultural products to be an important issue among consumers, farmers and governments worldwide. This has been reflected in the increasing supply of and demand for organic and eco-labelled products. While developed countries' interests are focused on certified organic production, developing countries such as China and Thailand develop their produce along various levels of 'clean'. The clean continuum ranges from production practices including high chemical safe use chemical, chemical-free and no chemical to environmentally friendly practices (organic). The ideal clean produce system is perceived to be one that utilizes organic practices that allow the use of alternative fertilizers and biopesticides rather than chemicals. Safe-use and chemical-free practices are between organic and conventional practices and are a possible step before converting conventional farms directly to organic farms. Organic farming in Thailand was initially developed by farmers and non government organizations (NGOs) in the 1980s, and was subsequently implemented by the Thai government through a series of policies on clean produce to meet international standards. The progress began in 2004, where, in order to meet the requirement to export and improved domestic food quality, the policy on agricultural chemical-use reduction had established and extended the Good Agriculture Practice (GAP) program for major economic crops including vegetables. The government also declared 2004 as the year of 'Health for All' and highlighted clean and healthy food in a public campaign to raise consumer awareness. In 2005, the government promoted organic agriculture as a national agenda. In 2007, the government restated the advanced policy for 2007-2008 on 'food safety' which takes into account the food chain or 'from farm to table'. There are various 'clean and safe' agricultural systems being developed in Thailand, although there is some confusion about what they actually mean and how they operate. This paper aims to review the initiatives on 'clean and safe' agriculture with emphasis on vegetables in 'clean and safe' farming system in northern Thailand. The background of 'clean and safe' agriculture such as definitions, aims and principles will be briefly described. Then the discussion will be focus on some important components of 'clean and safe' vegetable production systems in northern Thailand including research and development, certification systems, and market.